May 27 at Hi-Corbett Field in Tucson against UA is a date the ASU baseball team is all too familiar with at the onset of its 2012 season.
In any other year, May 27 would only be the No. 17 Sun Devils’ regular season finale, as they prepare for another College World Series run. This year, it will be the team’s final game of 2012.
Due to NCAA sanctions stemming from a period of infractions under former ASU coach Pat Murphy, the Sun Devils are ineligible for the postseason.
It’s a fact the team acknowledges, but it doesn’t mean the Sun Devils are resigning their entire season because they know when their final game is. In their minds, there is still plenty to play for.
“We have a chip on our shoulder and we have nothing to lose,” sophomore pitcher Trevor Williams said. “If we come out with the No. 1 ranking, the whole college world will say, ‘Why isn’t the No. 1 team in Omaha now?’ That bulldog mentality of going after every team like it’s our last game, that’s what sparks our flame.”
The Sun Devils won four straight on-field conference titles from 2007-10 before falling a game shy of winning the Pac-10 title last year. The NCAA stripped ASU of one of those titles for its violations.
Without hope of reaching the school’s 23rd CWS and capturing its first national championship since 1981, ASU’s sights are set on winning the conference crown.
“That’s our College World Series this season,” junior shortstop Deven Marrero said. “That’s what we’re playing for and that’s on everybody’s minds. It stinks, but we’re still playing. They didn’t take that away from us.”
For the team’s juniors and seniors, 2012 will also be important, as they are eligible for the MLB Draft.
Meanwhile, the underclassmen want to use this season as a launching point for next year, when the postseason ban is lifted.
“It’s all about the mindset,” Williams said. “The guys before us had the mindset of ‘We go to Omaha’ not, ‘If we go to Omaha.’ We want to breed our guys like that so we’re prepared.”
For most programs, scholarship, recruiting and postseason sanctions — like the ones put on ASU — would take years to recover from.
However, with its rich tradition and its list of 99 former Sun Devils reaching the major leagues, ASU baseball hasn’t lost its footing.
“It’s an easy sell to sell young men to play at Arizona State,” coach Tim Esmay said. “That’s the beauty of the Sun Devil way, and it’s continuing. The quality of baseball player that has played in this program sells itself. I just felt like we weren’t going to go backwards. The history of the place is astounding.”
Reach the reporter at tyler.emerick@asu.edu
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